Part of the Global Plot to Expose Moonbats, conspiracy nuts, and anti-Semites, especially the Jewish anti-Semitic variety.
The leftwing Neo-Nazi web magazine Counterpunch has described Plaut thus: "One of the most pernicious writers is Steven Plaut, a man who could be thought of as Israel's Daniel Pipes."

Thursday, January 05, 2012

The Ruckus over BGU's Tenured Tanzim Heats Up

Yaakov Bergman, a prominent professor at the Hebrew University, hasjoined the assault on the Tenured Tanzim who teach "politics" at BenGurion Univerity. He published a response to Neve Gordon and DaniFilc, the two most extremist Israel-hating faculty members in thisotherwise wall-to-wall anti-Israel far-leftist department. Gordon andFilc have both served as department chairmen in that department andboth have also chaired the anti-Semitic organization "Physicians forHuman Rights." (Neither of course is a physician.) Gordon and Filcdefend in Haaretz their department serving as a one-sided Bash-Israelpropaganda center. After all, whine Gordon and Filc in their Haaretzarticle, people who actually want an "ordinary" political sciencedepartment that engages in scholarly work and research can find thoseat Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University. In contrast, theyinsist, Ben Gurion "University" wanted a different sort of politicsdepartment, one focused on "criticism," by which they mean Bash-Israelpro-terror extremism plus a lot of Marxism. And ONLY that. There isnot a single non-leftist permitted to teach in that department. Andby the way there is no shortage of Marxists and radical leftists inthe political science departments at Hebrew University and Tel AvivUniversity either. Gordon and Filc then cite one Avner De Shalit, whoteaches political science at Hebrew University, of approving of whatthey are doing in politics at BGU, but of course neglect to mentionthat De Shalit is himself a Marxist and far-leftist who has made acareer out of studying "environmental justice," meaning a Marxist takeon environmentalism (see http://www.deshalit.huji.ac.il/) .

Anyway, Bergman bashed Gordon and Filc (in Hebrew) and posted thissegment from the recent international panel report on the Gordon-Filc"department":

3.5 ResearchThe committee feels that the research performance of the Departmentcan be improved considerably. [ A]n examination of facultypublications raises concerns about the department's research. [ ]While many books were published by good academic publishers, few booksin the materials presented to the committee were published by leadinguniversity presses and none of the articles mentioned were publishedby leading political science journals. [ ] In the original report,which covered a five-year period, only a couple of articles of allfaculty members combined were published in leading political sciencejournals. [ ] The committee recommends, therefore, to strengthen theoverall research performance of the Department [ ].http://www.che.org.il/download/files/Ben%20Gurion%20Report.pdf

Gordon and Filc then recruited some students from their own departmentto write a letter cheering on what goes on in that department. Butguess what. Since the entire politics department at BGU engages inBash-Israel extremism, most of the students who sign up for courses inthat department are SEEKING Bash-Israel extremism and Marxistgibberish. So OF COURSE they are great defenders of the Gordon-Filcgang.

A recent report by an international committee appointed by Israel'sCouncil for Higher Education recommended that the Politics andGovernment Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev be shutdown, should it fail to address the shortcomings outlined. Inparticular, the department stands accused of allowing the faculty'sleftist political opinions and fondness for activism to affect thecurriculum and undermine the quality of its academic research, aviewpoint apparently affirmed by students.Faculty have responded that the committee is populated by extremerightists and set out to hurt the department. However, in an op-ed forHaaretz entitled, ''Yes, Shut it Down!'' (perhaps unsurprisingly, itis only available in Hebrew) Ze'ev Maoz, a professor at UC Davis andthe Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center and a self-declared "proud manof the left" (credentials here), revealed he had been tasked withevaluating the department some nine years ago and came to the sameconclusions, also based solely on academic considerations.Rather than confront the findings of this report (and, it seems, theprevious one), faculty have gone on the defensive. Meanwhile, Prof.David Newman, a founder of the department and now a dean of theFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion, has paid itlittle attention, instead engaging in a peripheral, if revealing,personal conflict with Prof. Efraim Karsh, of King's College, London.Prof. Karsh noted on the day of the publication of the report,Newman's Jerusalem Post op-ed, instead of dealing with the committee'sfindings, blasted the Knesset for its alleged attack on democracy inseeking to restrict foreign funding of NGOs, to revise the system ofjudicial appointments, etc. The article, though of course it does notprecisely confirm the concerns of the report, certainly does nothingto mitigate them.Following the harsh words from Karsh, Newman, in a subsequentJerusalem Post piece, inexplicably denounced his adversary forcommitting "verbal terrorism" in resorting to Nazi metaphors – a featof which only Newman, of the two, is in fact guilty. Perhapsrecognizing the flimsiness of his defense (and compounding it), Newmanfurther implies that Karsh, having left Israel to teach in England, issomehow less fit to comment on his native state – an odd espousal froma man who himself has also spent much of the past few years inEngland.Back at Ben-Gurion, the political biases of the politics departmentare well-documented. Indeed, though Prof. Newman should be lauded forhis efforts to combat the proposed academic boycott of Israel in theUK, they do ring somewhat hollow when the chair of his own departmentsupports the boycott, a matter to which one would assume Newman wouldurgently attend. Instead of ignoring the report, Prof. Newman and therest of the faculty should immediately correct the failings in theirdepartments. And if they fail to step up, the authorities should pressthem to step down.